If you’ve ever recommended a successful candidate for a job, you might have gotten a sense for how your good word saved time and money for the company that made the hire.

Now, a Boston startup is building a system that it hopes will help both professional recruiters and people looking to cash in on their professional networks by matching employers with prospective workers.

The company, Scout Exchange, believes the idea is big enough to revolutionize a global recruiting market it pegs at $500 billion. And to show how serious he is about it, local entrepreneur John Chuang is putting a big chunk of his personal fortune behind the endeavor.